by Kim Fielding
“And the prisoner?”
Aric tried not to shift from foot to foot. “He’s… he’s very little trouble, Your Highness. I’m fulfilling all my duties.”
“I’m sure you are.” Prince Aldfrid’s eyes were sharp, even though his tone remained easy. “You’re not bothered by the nightmares?”
“They’re… they’re unpleasant. But more so for him than for me.” Damning himself silently for revealing too much, Aric bit his tongue.
The prince gave him a long look before nodding. “How is he?”
Aric had no idea how to answer that question. He didn’t know what Aldfrid wanted to hear. So he settled on the truth. “He’s suffering, sir. He… I think he tries not to fall into despair, but his life is so miserable. And I think some of the other… keepers abused him.” There. Now he was going to be thrown out of the palace and Gray would be alone again. For the hundredth time, Aric wished he were capable of the happy little webs of mistruth that others seemed to spin so easily.
But Prince Aldfrid didn’t look angry. Only sad and thoughtful. He stroked his mustache a few times and then said, “Would you like to borrow a book, Brute? Take it back to your room to read at your leisure, I mean.”
“I….” Aric shook his head slightly, trying to clear it enough to make sense of the conversation. “I’d like that very much. Thank you, sir.”
With another nod, this one brisk, the prince gave a small smile as well. “Excellent. Follow me. I have just the book in mind.”
Aric wasn’t certain what to do with the dragon book, so he ended up leaving it on the chair. Even with his long legs, he had to walk quickly to catch up with the prince, who had turned down one of the room’s short corridors of bookcases. “Hmm, let me see. Should be around here someplace…. Ah!” The prince tugged a slim green volume from the shelf and held it out. “Here you are. Can you remember where to return it when you’re finished with it?”
Aric looked around carefully so as to memorize the exact location. “Yes, sir.”
“Excellent. After you return it, you may borrow another if you like. But I’ve a meeting to attend.” He patted the book that was still tucked under his arm. “We need to improve the road between here and the bridge, and somehow I seem to have acquired that responsibility. It’s the most boring thing imaginable. Almost makes me wish I’d simply plunged off that damned cliff.”
The prince gave Aric’s arm two hearty pats and then hurried away.
Aric stood there, still more than slightly confused. And then his stomach gave a loud, embarrassing rumble, reminding him that it was lunch time. He wanted to practice with the guards that afternoon too, so he needed to hurry. He detoured by the chair to replace the dragon book onto the shelves and then rushed out of the library and to the tower. He’d drop off the green book there before grabbing lunch and joining the guards.
CAPTAIN JAUN was of the opinion that a well-prepared guardsman ought to do more than practice his weaponry and horsemanship. A guard ought also to be capable of climbing the defensive walls without losing his breath, and carrying sacks and boxes of supplies without collapsing under their weight. If he was stripped of his armor and arrows and blades, he still ought to be able to defeat an enemy through the strength of his hands and legs. The guards grumbled about it under their breath, but Aric was thankful. He wouldn’t have been able to join the guards in their training if all they did was shoot arrows or swing swords, and he’d never been on horseback in his life. But he could run with them and lift heavy chunks of iron with them, and even one-handed he could wrestle with them. He liked to do these things not only because they passed the time and kept him fit, not only because they lent him an easy sense of male camaraderie, but also because while he trained his mind was too occupied to dwell on other things.
Today the sky was overcast, and the air was chill enough that most members of the palace staff wore sweaters or cloaks. But after two hours of running around and leaping over obstacles, Aric and the guards were shirtless and drenched in sweat. When Captain Jaun told them they could have a brief break, the men clustered around a cistern, drinking deeply and splashing one another with the cold water. Aric took a metal scoopful and simply dumped it over his head, which made the others laugh.
A barrel-chested man with a face as badly scarred as Aric’s clapped him on the shoulder. “Y’oughta give up that cushy position and join the guard instead.”
Aric held up the stump of his left arm. “A one-handed guard?”
“So we won’t make you an archer. You could just stand at the front and point that ugly face of yours at intruders and they’d scamper away like mice.”
The men laughed again, and so did Aric. Comments like that were nothing like the tormenting he’d endured as a boy. In fact, these sorts of comments only made him feel more accepted, because the guards teased one another all the time: this one because he was too fat, another because he was too thin; this one because his wife was pregnant with their tenth child, that one because he was a newlywed. They gave each other nicknames like Big Ears or Rabbit (for prominent front teeth and a distinctly twitchy little nose), and nobody took offense. They were like an especially large and unruly group of brothers, and at times Aric ached to join them. Now, just knowing that they would allow him to do so was enough to bring him joy.
“Enough with the tea party, girls!” shouted Captain Jaun. “I want to see you running up those stairs as if all the demons of hell were nipping at your heels!”
Most of the men groaned, but Aric smiled and loped away. He was the first one to reach the stairs.
The sun set early this time of year, and it was already dark by the time Aric went to fetch his dinner. Alys wasn’t anywhere in sight at the kitchens, though, which worried him until an older woman with long gray braids gave him a bright smile. “Her man’s just returned this afternoon, thin as a broomstick and with his eyes all moony over her. We won’t be seeing either of them for a day or two at least.” The cooks and scullery maids and pot boys all laughed uproariously, and Aric understood that the kitchen staff was a family as well.
He carried the dinner buckets back to the tower, where, as usual after dark, the guard at the door lit a candle for him from a nearby torch. That was easier on Aric than trying, one-handed, to light a candle with flint. Nobody except Aric had entered his chamber since the first days after he’d arrived, which was generally a good thing, because it meant nobody saw that Gray was clean and shaved and decently fed.
“Y-you must have had a g-g-good day,” Gray said as Aric lit the candles in his room.
Aric turned to their dinners and, as always, began to transfer some of his own fish stew to Gray’s bowl. “How can you tell?”
“You were h-h-humming.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“D-don’t be. It’s nice.”
Aric smiled shyly and tore off a hunk of his soft bread. Gray had looped and tucked a quilt around himself in some elaborate fashion. He held out his hands as Aric unbolted the cell and stepped inside. “Th-thank you,” Gray said when Aric gave him the food. “D-d-did you enjoy the library?”
Although Gray’s question reminded him of the strange conversation with the prince, Aric grinned. “It was wonderful. Amazing. Like something from a story.”
“There’s a ch-chair in the northwest corner—I s-suppose it’s still there, likely been there for d-decades—that’s especially n-nice. In the afternoon, the s-s-sun shines through those panes of colored g-glass, and if you sit in that chair, it’s l-like you’re under water.”
Aric wondered how the son of a sailor came to know the royal library so intimately, but didn’t ask. Instead, he watched the other man slurp his dinner and then use the bread to mop up the last of the sauce. “I saw the prince in the library today,” Aric said.
Gray froze in the middle of handing his empty bowl back. “A-Aldfrid?”
“Yes. He… he asked after you.”
Gray’s expression—always a bit difficult to read anyway—became ver
y guarded. “Oh?”
Aric took the bowl but didn’t walk away with it. He hadn’t eaten yet himself and was very hungry, but something told him this discussion was important. To whom it was important and why, he couldn’t have said. “I think… he seemed distressed about you.”
“D-d-d-d-d—Fuck! D-distressed I’m s-s-still alive.”
“I don’t think so. I think… he cares about you, doesn’t he?”
Gray’s jaw worked for a moment. “H-he did once.” Then he folded himself into a ball in the corner of the cell, and Aric decided it was time to steer the conversation in a slightly different direction.
“He let me borrow a book from the library. He said I could read it here, and when I’m finished with it, I can exchange it for another.”
Gray didn’t answer, although Aric could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was listening.
“I’m going to have my dinner now,” Aric said, “and then I’m going to read. If you want, I can try to read out loud. I’m… I’m still not very good at it, but—”
“I’d like that,” Gray interrupted with a soft voice. “I m-miss reading. I miss so damned much!” Aric pretended he didn’t hear the sounds as Gray worked hard to suppress sobs. Sometimes a man wanted comfort, but sometimes there was greater dignity in being left alone.
The fish stew was good. It filled his belly comfortably, along with the rest of the bread and two small, crisp apples. When the food was gone and his usual tankard of ale empty, Aric washed up at his basin and removed his boots. The green book was sitting on the mattress, which was still bare of blankets. He grabbed the book, tucked it under his arm, and then took the largest of his candles off the shelf. He returned to the cell, which he hadn’t bothered to bolt.
In the warm, flickering light, Gray looked very young. He gave Aric a weak smile as the larger man settled beside him, and then Gray scooted a little closer so that their shoulders just barely touched. “Wh-what’s the book?”
Aric hadn’t even looked, and now that he did, he saw that the cover and spine contained no title, only the embossed and gilded drawing of a boat. He opened the book. The pages inside were thick and yellowed, and the printing looked a little smeary and old-fashioned. There weren’t any illustrations. “There are a lot of words here,” he said uncertainly.
“B-but you only have to read them one at a t-t-time.”
Well, put like that, the challenge did seem slightly less daunting. Aric squinted at the first sentence, not yet having the courage to say it aloud. But when he deciphered its meaning, he couldn’t help a startled little gasp.
“Wh-what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s only that I think this book is about those giants—Lorad and Lokad.”
Gray’s laughter was warm and hearty, and it loosened something tight in Aric’s heart. “I g-guess I’m not the only one who s-s-sees you that way.”
“Prince Aldfrid was making a joke.”
“M-maybe. H-he liked to tease. He wasn’t cruel, though.” Gray sighed. “N-never cruel. Come on, Aric. Read to me.”
Aric did. Haltingly, and with many mistakes. Sometimes he couldn’t figure out a word at all, and then he had to spell it to Gray, who would tell him what those confusing letters meant. But Gray was patient—urging Aric to continue whenever he got frustrated enough to want to give up—and Aric found that after a few pages the task came a little more easily to him. He read about Lorad and Lokad, who were fathered by lightning and birthed from a crevasse in one of the mountains to the west, and who suckled on tree sap and dew. When they were grown, they took pity on the humans, who were suffering from a crop-killing drought. First the giants tried to shake water from the clouds, but then the clouds dried up and blew away. Then they tried to water the earth with their own tears, but their tears were too salty. Finally, an eagle told them of a place to the east where the soil was fertile and the rain plentiful and where, even in drought years, people could feed themselves from the sea. But there was a problem: a terrible monster lurked near the shore, and it would prey on any people who came too close.
So Lorad and Lokad made their way to the land and they found the monster. They fought it, but although they were strong, it drew strength from the water, and they couldn’t drag it to shore. They withdrew to treat their wounds and strategize. It began to rain, and they saw how the monster hissed and moaned when the fresh water hit its scales. The brothers were heartened by their discovery, but disappointed when the monster simply sank beneath the waves.
“If we had more fresh water, we could defeat the monster,” Lorad said.
“Rain will not be enough. We need a river,” said his twin.
The giants set out in search of a river, and they found one: the Great River. Although it would surely have plenty of water for their needs, the Great River looped and twisted like a snake swallowing its own tail.
The giants used all their great strength to reshape the earth, in an attempt to coax the river along the necessary course. When the river still wouldn’t budge, they wrapped their great arms around it and wrestled it until it flowed where they wanted, straight into the sea. The sudden influx of fresh water killed the sea monster, and the people cheered.
But Lorad and Lokad had expended too much of themselves. Even as the humans prepared to settle in their new land, the giants collapsed into the Great River and were drowned. When the giant corpses were pulled from the mouth of the river, the people cried and begged the gods to return their heroes to them. The gods wouldn’t do that much—gods tended to be rather final in their decisions about death—but they did turn the bodies to stone so that the giants could stand forever at the mouth of the Great River, guarding Tellomer from dangers from the sea.
Aric’s voice was hoarse by the time he ended the tale, but he didn’t want to go to sleep. There was something so wonderfully intimate about sitting with another person like this, sharing a story, the candlelight flickering in the darkness. It was as if the rest of the world disappeared as long as the storytelling continued.
“Y-you read very well,” said Gray. “You m-m-must learn quickly.”
“I made a lot of mistakes.”
“Everyone does.” Gray rested his head on Aric’s shoulder. “D-do you see why Friddy chose that book for you? You’re a hero too.”
Aric snorted. “I’m not.”
“When y-you saved Friddy, is that when y-you lost your hand?”
“Yes.”
“D-d-did you almost die?”
“Maybe.”
Gray rested his hand on Aric’s knee. “Sacrificed yourself, j-just like the giants.”
“But I didn’t mean to! It’s only… the prince fell over the cliff, and I didn’t think at all, I just moved. I was the tallest and the strongest. I don’t think anyone else could have reached him in time. He was injured pretty badly. But I wasn’t a hero. I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it.”
With a low chuckle, Gray squeezed his knee. “Th-that’s what heroes do, Aric.”
“But I’m not—”
“You s-saved me.”
Aric shook his head and then gave a little tug on the chain that attached Gray’s collar to the floor. “You’re still a prisoner.”
“You saved me,” Gray repeated firmly to Aric. And then he kissed him.
At first, Aric was too startled to do anything except freeze. He was so focused on the feel of Gray’s warm lips against his that he barely noticed when Gray plucked the book out of his hand and then, presumably, set it aside. Aric parted his lips and, for the first time in his life, tasted another man—fish stew and something new, something he guessed was just Gray’s own flavor.
Gray wriggled out of the quilt and clambered onto Aric’s lap so that his naked chest was pressed against Aric’s shirt and his knees straddled Aric’s hips. He kissed Aric again, longer and more deeply. Aric’s hand hovered in midair; he had no idea where to put it.
Gray moved away, but only enough to drag his lips across Aric’s jaw and
to just below his ear. “D-do you want this?” he whispered.
“I… I….” Aric was now the one with the stutter. “I-I can’t….”
“It doesn’t have to m-mean anything. J-just c-comfort given, comfort shared. Or it can mean everything.”
Aric’s lungs were refusing to work properly, and his hand stopped obeying him, settling on Gray’s back, just above the swell of his buttocks. “I’ve never done this,” he admitted.
“You’re a v-virgin?”
“No. There are—there were boys during the Harvest Moon Festival. I paid them double.” He realized that his words probably made little sense, but he just couldn’t be coherent with Gray pressed up against him, breathing against his neck.
“Whores? That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“N-not the same then. Not the same as when someone w-wants you. And gods, Aric, I want you.”
If Aric hadn’t been hard already, the throatiness of Gray’s declaration would have done the trick. As it was, he let his head fall back—hard enough for it to knock against the stone wall—and he moaned as Gray mouthed at his neck and ground their groins together. Gray was hard as well, but his skin was very soft under Aric’s hand, and the muscle of his ass was nicely pliant when Aric allowed his hand to drop a bit farther down.
Aric was much larger and heavier than Gray, yet somehow Gray managed to maneuver them both so that Aric was lying flat on his back on the quilts. Then Gray made Aric’s trousers disappear—maybe he truly was a witch—and then Gray was stretched out full length on top of him, like a wonderfully living blanket. A wonderfully moving blanket, actually, as Gray traced his mouth and fingers over Aric’s face, over his neck and collarbones and chest. Gray sucked and nibbled at Aric’s nipples, which made Aric gasp and grab the other man’s hair, just for something to hold on to.
“G-gods,” Gray panted against Aric’s chest. “I’m afraid I’m n-not going to last long.”
And for some reason, that struck Aric as funny, and he began to laugh. Gray wiggled back up his body, and he laughed too. The sound of their voices mingling was as good as the feeling of their bodies pressed together. “I’d l-like to dream of this tonight,” said Gray. “Dream of us. So g-good, isn’t it?”